Come and hear what people thought of the proposed changes to urgent care in Sunderland

04/10/2018

NHS Sunderland Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) have given the public the opportunity to have their say about proposed changes to the way they deliver urgent care services.

They've engaged with over 2,507 people, which is over 1.1% of the population during the public consultation phase which ended on 2 September 2018.

The CCG will now enter into a period of ‘due consideration’ of all the feedback it received during the public consultation period to help inform their decision.

This consideration will include

Public feedback sessions including the bespoke travel and transport sessions

Focus groups held with the voluntary sector

All letters, emails and phone calls received

Financial information

Feedback from clinicians

Modelling on the number of staff available and people currently using the services

Confirmation of injury / illness figures

They wanted to share with you an update on their analysis of how people currently use urgent care services. Throughout the consultation, they have been working with their providers of urgent care to identify what people use services for – either illness such as stomach ache, or injury such as a broken leg. Having completed the review, the confirmed figures are:

2 in 10 people (24%) visit urgent care services for injury and under the proposals they would be seen at the urgent treatment centre (previously reported 1 in 10 people (10%))

8 in 10 people (76%) visit urgent care services for illness and under the proposals they would be seen at their own GP practice or through the Sunderland Extended Access Service (previously reported 9 in 10 people (90%)

The reason for the difference is that they have found that sometimes the way this information is reported differs staff member by staff member. For example, back pain can be reported as an injury rather than muscular pain or a long-term condition.

They are confident that this does not have a significant impact on the proposals that they consulted upon but wanted to make sure that you were aware of this new information.

They will continue to review the information and data available to them across all of their urgent care services to make sure that they always have the most up-to-date information to inform their future plans and decisions.

The report will be published on the CCG website [from 15 October] along with an easy read summary of the report and an audio version.

Members of the public will have until 28 October to give any further comments on the draft feedback report. Further details of how to do this will be available on the CCG website.

You’re invited to the feedback event where the CCG would like to share with you the findings of the draft report on:

The evening event will take place on Monday 22nd October 6-8pm at Bede Tower, Burdon Road, Sunderland SR2 7EA. For those who can’t attend, the event will also be streamed live on Facebook at @Sunderlandhealth.

Healthwatch Sunderland Engagement Team and our intrepid Volunteers have been ‘Out and About’ across all areas of Sunderland, making connections with local people to inform and increase knowledge on Healthwatch Sunderland – ‘Who We Are, What We Do and Engagement Processes’ ‘Where Have We Been and...